Yasumi Matsuno

Yasumi Matsuno
Born 1965 (age 50–51)[1]
Nationality Japanese
Occupation Video game designer

Yasumi Matsuno (松野 泰己 Matsuno Yasumi, born 1965)[1] is a Japanese video game designer. He is one of few designers to have two games receive a perfect score by Famitsu magazine: Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII were critically acclaimed with 40 out of 40 points.

Early life

Matsuno grew up in a rural area, where he felt his only entertainment were movies, television, books. His hobbies included making dioramas. He was particularly fond of World War II dioramas, that he used to make by researching at the local library. He would incorporate story elements into each of his creation.[2]

His introduction to video games was playing Space Invaders and Xevious at the arcades while waiting for the train. He was fond of The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest on Nintendo Entertainment System, and played heavily on the Amiga and PC, including Ultima Online.[2]

Career

Quest

Matsuno began his career at the Japanese video game developer Quest. In 1993, he served as the director of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen for the Super NES. It is the first installment of an episodic series of tactical role-playing games. On naming the game, Matsuno was inspired by rock band Queen's second album, which contained two songs titled "Ogre Battle" and "The March Of The Black Queen". Even the "Rhyan Sea" in the Ogre Battle world is named after "Seven Seas of Rhye".[3] The next game he worked on was Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, released in 1995 for the Super Famicom in Japan. The dark political narrative of the game revolving around the reality of war was inspired by Matsuno's outside perspective on events that unfolded during the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, including the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.[4]

Although Let Us Cling Together is the second entry released in the Ogre Battle franchise, it featured dramatically different gameplay than its predecessor. While Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen was more akin to a grand strategy role-playing game (RPG), Let Us Cling Together was a more intimate, squad-based, isometric tactical RPG. Let Us Cling Together then launched a sub-series within the franchise with Tactics Ogre being used to distinguish the two forms of gameplay in later sequels (notably Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis). Let Us Cling Together has since been well received and in March 2006, readers of the Japanese magazine Famitsu voted it number seven among their 100 all-time favorite games.[5]

Square and Square Enix

In 1995, Matsuno joined Square after quitting Quest.[6] At Square, Matsuno directed and wrote Final Fantasy Tactics for the PlayStation. Similar in design and gameplay to Tactics Ogre, it was lauded for its highly intricate story. After the game's release, Matsuno and his team began development on Vagrant Story. Smaller in scope than Final Fantasy Tactics, it was still highly regarded by critics and has gained somewhat of a cult following since its release. Matsuno supervised Square's PlayOnline project prior to its first beta release in 2001. He then served as producer for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance system, which shares the Final Fantasy Tactics system but has an entirely different storyline.[7]

In 2001, Matsuno was assigned to work on Final Fantasy XII as director together with Hiroyuki Ito.[8] He came up with the game's original concept and plot.[9] Matsuno reportedly was temperamental and refused to come to work for a month after part of the Final Fantasy XII team had left Square Enix to join Hironobu Sakaguchi's new company Mistwalker.[10] In August 2005, it was officially announced that he had stepped down from his position on the project due to a prolonged illness.[9][11]

Freelance period and Level-5

In 2006, Matsuno expressed his interest for Nintendo's Wii console in a promotional video, stating that he was impressed with the intuitive functionality provided by the remote controller.[12] He was approached by his friend, the PlatinumGames producer Atsushi Inaba, to work on the scenario for the Wii game MadWorld.[13] While developing the setting, story and script, Matsuno often consulted with the development team and received conflicting orders from the staff members: the game designers wanted to emphasize extreme violence but the producers wished to tone it down instead. Matsuno's ideas and writing for the game were influenced by the necessity to balance these two different points of view.[14] In October 2007, composer and longtime collaborator Hitoshi Sakimoto mentioned that he was working with Matsuno on "some stuff".[15] When the original developers of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together were assembled to work on a reimagined port for the PlayStation Portable, Matsuno was called upon to handle the game design and new story elements.[16]

Soon after the port was finished, Level-5 president Akihiro Hino entered talks with him to convince him of joining the company. In June 2011, it was announced that Matsuno had entered Level-5 based on his impression of the Professor Layton and Inazuma Eleven series and in order to create the games he wanted to.[17] During his stay there, he developed the fantasy RPG Crimson Shroud for the Nintendo 3DS, which is part of the collaborative project Guild 01 of Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda, Sega's Yoot Saito and comedian Yoshiyuki Hirai.[18] Matsuno left Level-5 in October 2012 and explained "With my work done on the domestic and overseas version of my latest 3DSWare game, it was good timing for me to step down and take a short break in order to recharge for my next project."[19] In September 2013, he announced a partnership with the American company Playdek to develop Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians for PC and smartphones, which will be a strategy game similar to Matsuno's previous titles and set in a medieval fantasy world.[20]

Game design

Matsuno stated that he is heavily influenced by Western games. He is also influenced by films, particularly the original trilogy of Star Wars. He has described the development culture at Quest as a "kind dictatorship" while Square's is more "democratic", and is not personally fond of other team members having input on his narrative work.[2]

Works

Release Title System Role(s)
1990 Conquest of the Crystal Palace NES Planner
1993 Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen Super NES Planner, director
1995 Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together Super Famicom Game designer, director, scenario writer[16]
1997 Final Fantasy Tactics PlayStation Director, writer
2000 Vagrant Story PlayStation Producer, director, battle design, writer
2003 Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Game Boy Advance Producer
2006 Final Fantasy XII PlayStation 2 Scenario plot, original concept, original director, supervision[9]
2009 MadWorld Wii Story writer
2010 Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together PlayStation Portable Game design, scenario
2012 Crimson Shroud Nintendo 3DS (eShop) Game design, scenario
2014 Terra Battle iOS, Android Scenario[21]
TBA Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians PC, iOS, Android Game design, story[22]

References

  1. 1 2 "第１回　クエスト→スクウェア×任天堂 = ?". Nintendo. 2003-03-20. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  2. 1 2 3 http://www.4gamer.net/games/116/G011621/20110426090/
  3. ↑ East, Tom (2009-07-03). "New Nintendo Downloads". Official Nintendo Magazine. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  4. ↑ Parish, Jeremy (2011-02-08). "Let Us Remember Together: A Tactics Ogre Retrospective". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  5. ↑ Colin, Campbell (2006-03-03). "Japan Votes on All Time Top 100". Edge. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  6. ↑ Gifford, Kevin (2011-06-28). "Strategy RPG Pioneer Yasumi Matsuno Jumps to Level-5". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  7. ↑ "Yasumi Matsuno speaks about Final Fantasy Tactics for the GBA". GameSpot. 2002-03-27. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  8. ↑ Kawamura, Naruhiro (2001-01-22). "FF11、PCでも発売、FF12の制作を開始". Mainichi. Archived from the original on 2001-04-13.
  9. 1 2 3 Niizumi, Hirohiko (2005-08-01). "FFXII producer steps down". GameSpot. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  10. ↑ "Final Fantasy XII Dated". 1UP.com. 2005-07-30. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  11. ↑ Anoop Gantayat (August 1, 2005). "Changes to Final Fantasy XII Staff". IGN Entertainment, Inc.
  12. ↑ Kennedy, Sam (2006-09-14). "Matsuno Developing for Wii". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
  13. ↑ Torres, Ricardo (2009-02-13). "Madworld Updated Hands-On". GameSpot. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  14. ↑ Matsuno, Yasumi (2009-03-04). "Narrativity". IGN.com. Archived from the original on 2009-03-11. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  15. ↑ Kennedy, Sam; Parish, Jeremy (2007-10-30). "Enchanting Melodies: Final Fantasy XII Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto Interview". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
  16. 1 2 Gantayat; Anoop (2010-07-22). "Team Tactics Ogre Details PSP Remake". Andriasang. Archived from the original on 2012-12-25. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  17. ↑ Gantayat, Anoop (2011-06-29). "How Yasumi Matsuno Ended Up at Level-5". Andriasang. Archived from the original on 2012-09-30. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  18. ↑ Dutton, Fred (2011-10-13). "Level-5 announces Guild 01 for 3DS". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  19. ↑ Lien, Tracey (2012-11-08). "Vagrant Story and Ogre Battle developer leaves Level-5 after less than 17 months". Polygon. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  20. ↑ Wallace, Kimberley (2013-09-19). "Final Fantasy Tactics And Vagrant Story Director Introduces New Project". Game Informer. Retrieved 2013-09-19.
  21. ↑ "Achieved 1.5M downloads!!". terra-battle.com. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  22. ↑ "A message from Yasumi Matsuno, Q&A Sessions, and MORE!". Playdek. 2014-01-28. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
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